No one should have a problem with a foreigner coming here, obtaining an education, and staying here to earn a living. Andy Grove comes to mind.
What bothers most of us are the foreigners who come here temporarily and are forced to leave and take their knowledge and skills with them to set up competition somewhere else. That makes no fricken sense at all.
"And, yes, you can be unmasked for truly defamatory speech, but calling someone a skank hardly qualifies."
Mike I'm so glad you said that. The mistake the judge made was not to expose an anonymous defamer. If you defame someone anonymously, Courts can and will "unmask" you. There is simply no right to anonymously defame someone in the US.
The mistake the judge made was in finding that the word "skank" could be defamatory. That was ludicrous. Mere insults and name calling are not defamatory because they're mere opinions.
"I would love it if I could get all the movies and music I want for free. And I would love it if I could get all the BMWs, houses in the hills, and meals at Urasawa I want for free as well. But of course I realize I can't."
Yes you can. That's why IP has nothing to do with property. It's a government granted monopoly which exists solely to create a market where none exists. It creates a market by creating artificial scarcity out of a legal fiction. But the scarcity is not real.
To analogize the sales of imaginary scarcity to physical goods is simply asinine.
While I disagree completely that a mere insult such as "shank" could be considered defamatory, that ruling is completely ridiculous, I don't understand why anyone thinks they have some sort of right to anonymity for publicly made statements.
Anonymity is a lot like privacy. If you want privacy, don't go out in public. If you want to retain your anonymity, don't make public statements. To put it another way, once you put yourself out into the public sphere, any "right" of privacy or to anonymity disappears.
Newspapers are failing because their business model is obsolete. At one time, every city and town having a printing press to deliver the news was a highly efficient means of distribution.
The movie industry didn't destroy that. Radio didn't destroy that. TV didn't destroy that.
The internet did. The internet is much more efficient than printing news on paper and delivering it the next day via trucks and cars.
So right now we have thousands of printers, aka, newspaper publishers, who have nothing to print because no one is reading their prints and no one is paying for their prints via advertising.
We're in a transitional stage. People always panic during these times because people inherently fear not knowing the future. Some large cities might be able to support the printed news. The vast majority will not. Within a decade most people will not even remember a time when we read newspapers.
This perfectly explains how bizarre copyright has become.
The copyright industry want to kick someone of the net solely because her or she is accused of downloading three songs. Songs on Amazon cost about a buck. So for three bucks, the person is barred from the net.
Let's imagine a different law. Let's imagine that the banking industry gets annoyed with people stealing pens out of their lobbies. Imagine that a law is enacted stating that any person accused by a bank of stealing three pens is banned from the entire banking industry for the rest of his or her life.
Does anyone think such a law has any chance to be passed? Does anyone seriously think that such a law makes sense?
But for some bizarre reason it does in the crazy brave new world of copyright.
"Access Copyright is talking about customers here."
This is exactly the problem with government granted monopolies. We're not customers by choice, we're forced to be customers under government fiat.
Access Copyright is correct to ignore that we're customers and treat us like enemies because essentially it's true. Access Copyright realizes that we're not customers. Access Copyright realizes that it does not have to provide a reason to pay. Access Copyright realizes that what it needs is a stronger monopoly from the government, because without it, we'd have no incentive or reason to pay.
When you live off the government for as long as Access Copyright has, that's simply the way you start to think. It happens to people on welfare every day. Which is basically what copyright is, unfunded corporate welfare.
I was hoping to find the statute for the charge of possession or selling of unlabed recordings in Westlaw, but had no luck. A search for "unlabel!" (without the quotes) brought up nothing of relevance. Mmmm...
I have no doubt that MTV's decision was profitable. But on the other side of the coin, does anyone think Boy George could have had any success in the US without MTV? Or all of those awful hair bands? And let's not forget that MTV helped expose rap music, even though it got into the genre late.
While radio was stagnate and sticks to narrow playlists, MTV was constantly looking for the next big thing. It was free to jump from genre to genre helping to expose music and sell music in the process.
As I wrote, once that stopped, the music industry started to decline.
Not exactly, if you read my link, you'd know that I wrote that the decline started back when MTV stopped playing videos and stopped exposing new music. In other words, the decline did not start with P2P. It started when kids were no longer being exposed to new and different music.
It was more than merely the release of the CD format that saved the music industry back in the 80s. It was also MTV playing new and different music that got people excited about music again.
As I've written about before, the music industry was practically dead in the early 80s. The blame was on video games and piracy via cassette tapes. (Sound familiar?)
The industry rebounded when MTV got into sufficient homes and the rebound lasted until MTV stopped playing videos in the early 90s. That's really when the music industry started tanking. Several years before P2P caught on.
On the post: Fewer Foreigners Coming To US Grad Schools: This Is A Problem
What bothers most of us are the foreigners who come here temporarily and are forced to leave and take their knowledge and skills with them to set up competition somewhere else. That makes no fricken sense at all.
On the post: Serial Anti-Spam Lawsuit Filer Loses Appeal... And His Possessions
I can't really feel sorry for the guy, even though I support his cause 100%.
On the post: Tech Columnist Calls Model 'A Hero' For Exposing Anonymous Blogger
Mike I'm so glad you said that. The mistake the judge made was not to expose an anonymous defamer. If you defame someone anonymously, Courts can and will "unmask" you. There is simply no right to anonymously defame someone in the US.
The mistake the judge made was in finding that the word "skank" could be defamatory. That was ludicrous. Mere insults and name calling are not defamatory because they're mere opinions.
On the post: Myth Debunking: Fans Just Want Everything For Free
Yes you can. That's why IP has nothing to do with property. It's a government granted monopoly which exists solely to create a market where none exists. It creates a market by creating artificial scarcity out of a legal fiction. But the scarcity is not real.
To analogize the sales of imaginary scarcity to physical goods is simply asinine.
On the post: Judge Says Blogger Who Called Model A Skank Should Be Unmasked
Anonymity is a lot like privacy. If you want privacy, don't go out in public. If you want to retain your anonymity, don't make public statements. To put it another way, once you put yourself out into the public sphere, any "right" of privacy or to anonymity disappears.
On the post: Finnish Courts: Man Who Shared 150 Albums Owes 3,000 Euros
However, was there actually any evidence presented at trial that someone completely downloaded any or all of the albums without permission?
On the post: Copyright Insanity: Courts Continue To Try To Slice And Dice The Superman Copyright
On the post: Why Newspapers Are Failing (Hint: Failure To Get Users To Pay Is NOT The Reason)
Why newspapers are failing
The movie industry didn't destroy that. Radio didn't destroy that. TV didn't destroy that.
The internet did. The internet is much more efficient than printing news on paper and delivering it the next day via trucks and cars.
So right now we have thousands of printers, aka, newspaper publishers, who have nothing to print because no one is reading their prints and no one is paying for their prints via advertising.
We're in a transitional stage. People always panic during these times because people inherently fear not knowing the future. Some large cities might be able to support the printed news. The vast majority will not. Within a decade most people will not even remember a time when we read newspapers.
On the post: Zer01 Fails To Deliver Again; Blames Everyone Else, Dumps Buzzkirk, Threatens Legal Response To Reporters
Why did your magazine give a "Best of Show" award to a product you never actually used or even saw?!
On the post: Hollywood Says Due Process Is Too Damn Slow
The copyright industry want to kick someone of the net solely because her or she is accused of downloading three songs. Songs on Amazon cost about a buck. So for three bucks, the person is barred from the net.
Let's imagine a different law. Let's imagine that the banking industry gets annoyed with people stealing pens out of their lobbies. Imagine that a law is enacted stating that any person accused by a bank of stealing three pens is banned from the entire banking industry for the rest of his or her life.
Does anyone think such a law has any chance to be passed? Does anyone seriously think that such a law makes sense?
But for some bizarre reason it does in the crazy brave new world of copyright.
On the post: Gucci Sues Credit Card Processors For Trademark Infringement
On the post: Canadian Copyright Organization: This Is War Against Consumers
This is exactly the problem with government granted monopolies. We're not customers by choice, we're forced to be customers under government fiat.
Access Copyright is correct to ignore that we're customers and treat us like enemies because essentially it's true. Access Copyright realizes that we're not customers. Access Copyright realizes that it does not have to provide a reason to pay. Access Copyright realizes that what it needs is a stronger monopoly from the government, because without it, we'd have no incentive or reason to pay.
When you live off the government for as long as Access Copyright has, that's simply the way you start to think. It happens to people on welfare every day. Which is basically what copyright is, unfunded corporate welfare.
On the post: Man Claims Copyright On Mental Math Trick
Once again, you cannot copyright an idea!
On the post: Is It Illegal To Posess Unmarked CDs In Texas?
On the post: Murdoch Now Demanding Names Of Kindle Subscribers
On the post: Radiohead's Thom Yorke Explains How Recording Industry Milked CD Business
Re: Re: Re:
While radio was stagnate and sticks to narrow playlists, MTV was constantly looking for the next big thing. It was free to jump from genre to genre helping to expose music and sell music in the process.
As I wrote, once that stopped, the music industry started to decline.
On the post: Radiohead's Thom Yorke Explains How Recording Industry Milked CD Business
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Radiohead's Thom Yorke Explains How Recording Industry Milked CD Business
Re: Re:
On the post: Radiohead's Thom Yorke Explains How Recording Industry Milked CD Business
As I've written about before, the music industry was practically dead in the early 80s. The blame was on video games and piracy via cassette tapes. (Sound familiar?)
The industry rebounded when MTV got into sufficient homes and the rebound lasted until MTV stopped playing videos in the early 90s. That's really when the music industry started tanking. Several years before P2P caught on.
On the post: Network Solutions Decides To Obscure Common Words, Just To Get Some Trademarks?
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